When Rick Kaselj of Canada joined the online group The Cloverdale Mommy & Me Meetup Group with his infant son, he felt he found a place to get support despite the name. In an email interview he told me he had "joined the group and welcomed. I had been a member for 2 to 3 months and was receiving 4 to 5 notices a day from the group." When it came time to show up at his first event he got an email from the moderator that more then half of the group voted to ban him from the group. In a quote to Surrey Now the email went on to state: "I hate to discriminate, but hope you can understand when it comes to the security of our children and especially since you have not been able to attend a meetup." In the meantime Rick is now part of the At-Home Dad Network to help him find another playgroup that will accept him. Also the Surrey Now has started an online poll on the front page with the question:Do you think a Cloverdale mothers group was out of line when it rejected a Surrey father just because he was a man?So far the votes have been overwhelming in favor of Dad 80% to 20%.

It appears that on October 15th when the story broke they added this addendum to their main page: This Group is specific to moms only as requested by a majority of it's members

All I can say is shame on you Cloverdale, maybe let him spend a day at one event.. geez..give this guy a chance! Banning a member to a playgroup due to his gender has no basis on the "security of your children" Come on ladies!! This is a little over the top don't you think?

If there is another playgroup leader in the Surrey BC area that is reading this, I hope you will be the first to step forward and welcome Rick as a member.

When I hear from Rick again or a playgroup that will take him on. I'll post an update...

Boston playgroup takes the plunge into social networking.Topic: Playgroup News

The North of Boston Dads playgroup out of Wakefield, MA (formally the nobaddad group) has transformed itself into to what I think may be the first social networking playgroup for at-home dads. They used an easy to build playform provided by ning if you want to give this app a whack.

A
huge thank you to Bruce of Seattle
Dads for going though the playgroup list I have maintained since the mid 90's.
When I had the hardcopy
version of the At-Home Dad Newsletter, I listed over 300 individual
dads looking to start up groups which needed to be maintained heavily.
Eventually due to the transitional nature of the at-home dad and my laziness
they would disappear leaving a deadly trail of non-responding links. Bruce
painstakingly tracked down every link from my list and other
dad sites and listed the established ones here.
He's offered to share his database so if you want in on the action send him an e-mail
and be nice to him. Due to his efforts I've cleaned up my list,
which I will promise I will maintain. I'll still continue to include individual
dads who are looking to start a group as well as the larger groups.

We
all know at-home dad penguins can treat their wives like this
on a bad day,but
would
you believe they stand outside in sub-zero temps with no food for 65 days for
their
kids? TheNationalGeographicreports
that the penguin egg?s father balances it on his feet
and covers it with his brood pouch, a very warm layer of feathered skin designed
to keep the egg cozy. There the males stand, for about 65 days, through icy
temperatures, cruel winds, and blinding storms. And they eat nothing that whole
time. Due to this evidence, the
Northeast
Wisconsin At Home Dadsfeatures their new
hero on their site.

Reporter Anna
Krejci, of the Green Bay News Chronicle interviewed the Northeast
Wisconsin group leader Bruce
Cantrall and 2 other dads about the penguin while they
were corralling 6 kids at their local library. Bruce reports, We
were asked by the reporter if we do a "background check" on our
members. (We have an application
process on our web page before joining the email list or having anyone look at
photos). I do not expect a reporter would ask anyone from a Mom's group
that question. I asked the reporter if she had children or was married, she
said she was single with no kids . I suggested
that she could always become a work-at-home or away mom as a reporter
with a stay-at-home dad taking care of her children. Did she ever think of
that when looking at possible mates? No
was her answer. All
in all, the story bought in one more dad and Bruce notes that The
group feels it was a very positive article on the importance of dads in their
children's lives. They included 3 nice photos with the kids and the dads
doing things together